Oklahoma Congressloon John Sullivan Officially Joins The Birthers

Would you let your young child near this guy?

Lifelong binge drinker and wingnut John Sullivan is back from his taxpayer-funded stay at the Betty Ford Clinic. He claims he's no longer tempted by alcohol. But he's doubling down on the crazy wingnuttery. According to the very conservative Tulsa World, Sullivan, addressing a mob of Republican activists at a health care forum at the Summit Club, questioned the authenticity of Barack Obama's birth certificate. Without having his alcoholism as an excuse for his psychotic pronouncements, does Sullivan really have a reasonable shot at being re-elected next year?

Despite Oklahoma suddenly leaning Democratic in party identification, lets' not kid ourselves. Oklahoma gave McCain a bigger percentage of it's vote (66%) than any other state in the Union, even more than the three crazy Mormon states! And Obama did even worse in Sullivan's Tulsa-based district (OK-01) than Kerry had in 2000. At the same time, Sullivan also netted 66% of the votes in the district.

Out of a possible score of 100 on the ProgressivePunch scale of progressiveness, Sullivan rated a 0.86! (He must have had a couple drinks too many one day and accidentally cast a vote that favored working families for a change.) He isn't even the most far right member of the sociopathic Oklahoma congressional delegation. Mary Fallin, who represents Oklahoma City, the only part of the state where Obama actually did reasonably well, has a rating of 0.37! (She's been burnishing her image for a run for the governorship.) Tom Cole and Frank Lucas are relative socialists though with scores of 1.53 and 1.57 on the scale, beating out in the race to the bottom of the fringe barrel such celebrated extremists and national cranks as Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Dan Burton (R-IN, but owned by the government of Turkey) and Dan Lungren (R-CA).

Back to supposedly the rehabilitated Rep. Sullivan. The Tulsa Teabag Tribune reports that Sullivan can expect stiff competition, both from a Blue Dog type Democrat, conservative Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor, and from a gaggle of far right Republicans.

Certain Republicans in Oklahoma City are wondering if investing in Sullivan is a lost cause and if it isn’t time to invest in a candidate who would win.

People like to back a winner.

On the Republican side, former State Sen. Scott Pruitt is being urged to jump into the GOP primary against Sullivan in 2010.

Pruitt ran against Sullivan in his first campaign and lost in the primary.

Pruitt has interest in an Oklahoma City baseball team but maintains his home in Broken Arrow. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 2006.

He is a conservative Evangelical who has always had an eye for higher office.

Other conservative Republicans in Tulsa are hoping that former Gov. Frank Keating would run for the First District.

Keating is moving back to Oklahoma after working in Washington, D.C., for a few years. He was a successful two-term governor and was on the short list for vice president with George W. Bush.

Family sources say Keating is not going to run. His wife, former First Lady Cathy Keating, lost to Sullivan in the Republican primary in 2001 in a major upset.

A host of Republicans are hoping to persuade former State Sen. Jim Williamson to run for the First District. They would have liked to draft Williamson for mayor but Williamson declined. He might like the idea of a higher office.

Williamson has not said he will make that race but he hasn’t ruled it out.

That Tulsa World story linked above sums up Sullivan and his confusion nicely: "Sullivan began by saying he questioned the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate and alluding to what he said is an 'enemies list' the administration is compiling from e-mails critical of the Democrats' health care reform initiative, but concluded with a call for less bickering." Maybe he only did eleven steps.